Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Trophy Bonded Bear Claw bullets?

I finally got around to loading some of the Federal version for a 270. They were grouping 3/4 of an inch for Granddaughter yesterday. It’s an old junkie Sako made in 68. She is going to a ranch in west Texas that requires at least a 270.

That's good to know. I just dug out some 140s I bought 20 years or more ago to try.

Excellent. I think you’ll like them. I need to load some up for hunting myself.

The original Bear Claw was reasonably accurate, but had the same problem as the original Barnes X: The shank was pure copper, so fouled quite a bit, and if it didn't exactly fit the barrel of a certain rifle sometimes didn't shoot well. Pressure tended to be pretty high as well. (I knew Jack Carter and got my first TB bullets from him, and he acknowledged both problems.)

Barnes solved their problem by grooving the shank. At first Federal partially solved the Trophy Bonded fouling problem by using gilding metal (90% copper, 10% zinc) instead of pure copper. But eventually Federal used similar circumferential grooves--and also nickel-plated the bullets. This basically solved the fouling problem, and they also added the polymer tip, which also increased BC.

As a a result of all this the present Federal Trophy Bonded Tip doesn't copper-foul, resulting very good accuracy. But in my various penetration tests it resulted in the same results in penetration and retained weight as Jack Carter's original bullet.

Have been a fan since the TB Tip appeared in 2008, and in fact killed my biggest elk with the 180 from a .30-06. It worked great, but unfortunately Federal soon quit selling the bullet to handloaders, probably because of the Obama buying panic. Instead it was only available in factory ammo--until 2-3 years ago. Now, like everything else, it's rarely available due to most bullets going into factory ammo.

Am finishing up an article on handloading the .284 Winchester for HANDLOADER magazine, and the 160 TB Tip was among the most accurate bullets.

Great Bullet

"Am finishing up an article on handloading the .284 Winchester for HANDLOADER magazine"

Looking forward to reading that.

Me too, just loaded some 120 TTSX bullets for a 99, may try some 140 TP bear claws for it.

I snagged 5 boxes of federal premium 30-06 loaded with the 165g Trophy Bonded Tip. Unfortunately due to idiocy of youth, I used too many of them just to sight in and shoot [bleep], and I'm down to half a box. But, I've killed 4 deer with them so far, and recovered one bullet. All 4 deer had perfect entry and exit holes, ruinous organ damage, and the recovered round was textbook mushroom and weighed 158gr which I thought was stellar weight retention.

I got lucky enough to find a box of reloading bullets on a shelf somewhere, so I have a stash of 50x 165's in my drawer that I want to stuff into a 308 one day and see how it does.

I still have a couple of boxes of .35 Whelen TBBC 225 gr factory loads. They have been super accurate in my .35 Whelen and always produced dead critters with exit holes. My son shoots the 160 gr TBBC in his 7mm RM with similar results. Luckily, he snagged 3 boxes of old stock Federal loads last year, so good to go for a while. I load the TTSX and LRX in other calibers. Happy Trails.

If it's not been posted, here is a JB article on them.


https://www.handloadermagazine.com/trophy-bonded-tip

The 30 cal 180 gr TBT has proven very accurate for me in two 30-06 rifles. I recovered one from a MI whitetail. Range was 90 yards and MV was 2800. It was a follow up shot on the downed buck and struck him in the spine and came to rest under the skin just ahead of the shoulder. It expanded widely, though somewhat unevenly. It weighs 149 grains. One of the rifles is a bit finicky, so I picked up the last few boxes of these bullets I could find, for future use. FWIW, in that same rifle, I now know the 168 TTSX shoots at least as well. Two darned good choices in my opinion.

All of the current variations - bonded bear claw, bonded tip, and terminal ascent - are good bullets in terms of both accuracy and terminal performance. The terminal ascent and tipped versions are also fairly aerodynamic.When available those or A-Frames are my first choice for a soft depending on the exact application.

Coincidentally I went to Kesselrings today and found a bunch of “gotta have” stuff but most pertinent to this thread was an old box of Trophy Bonded Bear Claws in 140gr “Solid Shank” .277. I don’t have a .270 nor will I but I wanted the box and thought about this thread so for $5 I bought it. 😁

Thanks for posting

Well I thought I would use what I have for hunting this year so sighted in the old .270 with them. 5 shots just over an inch right where I wanted them. I thought, "This is great!" Shot to confirm on another target and the group was wider for 3. Shot another 3 shots and it was wider yet. Finally with 3 more (Slow learner sometimes) it was even wider. 3" group. I thought about the all copper shank fowling the rifle and decided to clean it. Wipe out showed quite a bit of blue on a patch. Now I need to shoot it again to see if it tightens back up.

The old one sure copper fouled. I really like the new style.

does the nickel plated bullet wear the barrel any faster than copper plated bullets?
Big Ed

So has federal stopped making the TBBC loadings?